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Forgive me if the details are a little sketchy – whether I went from Buenos Aires to Iguacu Falls first, or Rio or Uraguay, is all a bit confused. Ahhh, yes, I remember now – I spent Christmas in Rio, it felt like the thing to do; but then we (that being me and everyone else staying in the two main hostels in town) didn’t bargain on the fact that everywhere closes on Christmas Eve in Rio, apart from the restaurants which seemed to have been booked up since October (no doubt). A walk in Rio on Christmas Eve is a walk in a ghost town with the odd shady figure (not unlike myself) aimlessly looking for something to do and then, after five or six streets of darkness and solitude, being drawn to the next restaurant with bouncers on the door and smiling faces inside. I stood and scratched my nails down the food establishment’s window pane in a grand display of my anguish at being left alone on such a festive occasion.